Dr. Mary McCampbell is an author, educator, and speaker whose publications span the worlds of literature, film, and popular music. This interdisciplinary focus is also present in her book, Imagining Our Neighbors as Ourselves: How Art Shapes Empathy (Fortress Press, 2022). You can find her public-facing writing in outlets such as Image Journal,The Curator, The Other Journal, Relevant, Christianity Today, and her weekly substack newsletter, The Empathetic Imagination. Her academic publications include chapters or articles on contemporary fiction and popular culture in Isn’t it Ironic?: Irony in Contemporary Popular Culture, ASAP Journal, Spiritual Identities: Literature and the Post-Secular Imagination, and Jesmyn Ward: New Critical Essays.
Mary has taught at Calvin University, Covenant College, The University of TN, and–most recently– Lee University, where she was associate professor of humanities and taught courses on contemporary fiction, film, popular culture, and modernism. A native Tennessean, she completed her doctorate at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (UK); her research focused on the relationship between contemporary fiction, late capitalist culture, and the religious impulse.
Mary was one of the organizers of Calvin University's Festival of Faith and Music from 2009-2017, and she frequently speaks and teaches on the theological significance of popular music, film, and fiction. She was the Summer 2014 Writer-in-Residence at L’Abri Fellowship in Greatham, England and a 2018 Scholar-in-Residence at Regent Theological College in Vancouver, Canada.